§1
BUT meanwhile what about the charge against us? and what about the Commission of Enquiry?
The new Commission made just as great a mess of it as its predecessor. The police had been on our track for a long time, but their zeal and impatience prevented them from waiting for a decent pretext, and they did a silly thing. They employed a retired officer called Skaryatka to draw us on till we were committed; and he made acquaintance with nearly all of our set. But we very soon made out what he was and kept him at a distance. Some other young men, chiefly students, were less cautious, but these others had no relations of any importance with us.
One of the latter, on taking his degree, entertained his friends on June 24, 1834. Not one of us was present at the entertainment; not one of us was even invited. The students drank toasts, and danced and played the fool; and one thing they did was to sing in chorus Sokolovski’s well-known song abusing the Tsar.
Skaryatka was present and suddenly remembered that the day was his birthday. He told a story of selling a horse at a profit and invited the whole party to supper at his rooms, promising a dozen of champagne. They all accepted. The champagne duly appeared, and their host, who had begun to stagger, proposed that Sokolovski’s song should be sung over again. In the middle of the song the door opened, and Tsinski appeared with his myrmidons. It was a stupid and clumsy proceeding, and a failure as well.
The police wanted to catch us and were looking out for some tangible pretext, in order to trap the five or six victims whom they had marked down; what they actually did was to arrest a score of innocent persons.